Cancellation Watch: No More Episodes Planned for Frequency’s First Season; plus the Scorecard

Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.

No New Episodes: The CW announced its mid-season schedule this week (you can see the preliminary schedule at this link) and also indicated that their time travel series Frequency will not have any more episodes in its first season. I thought that one was always planned for a thirteen episode first year run, but apparently Deadline Hollywood and other media outlets expected a “Back 9” order for the show to bring it to a full season order of twenty two. Now typically, if a broadcast network show does not get those additional eps, then it is considered all but cancelled. But that applies more to the Big Four networks and The CW plays by its own rule. The fifth place network likes to do a blanket renewal of all its Fall shows, but I am thinking they will have a hard time giving Frequency (along with equally low-rated dramedy No Tomorrow) the second season nod. TV by the Numbershas noted that Frequency will start running on Netflix eight days after its season ends, which means that it will get started up on the streaming service in February. And since The CW doesn’t have to set their Fall 2017 schedule until May, that will give them a few months to see if the show picks up viewers in its streaming run. Thus, the network has not completely tuned out Frequency at this point, but it definitely appears to be losing the signal. I’m not raising its Cancellation Alert level beyond Medium for now, because hey, it’s a CW show. But fans should probably get active on the social nets to bring attention to the show which could get new viewers to tune in once it hits Netflix.

Ratings Results of Interest: On Monday, NBC’s Timeless improved slightly to a 1.2 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 4.5 million total viewers. But it is still losing a fair chunk of its lead-in audience from The Voice, so I am thinking that the NBC execs are not happy with the show’s performance at this point. Over on the National Geographic Channel, the Mars docu-drama mini-series bowed to a 0.30 rating with 1.4 million total viewers which I believe are decent numbers for that channel, though I have not tracked its shows too closely. On Tuesday, FOX’s Scream Queens returned low after three weeks of preemptions with only a 0.6 rating and 1.4 million total viewers. Consider it likely done after this season. Over on Syfy, Channel Zero only had a 0.14 rating with 420k total viewers for its Season 1 finale, though it has done well overall for that cable channel. It’s second season–based on the “No-End House” creepypasta–kicks off at mid-season. Over on MTV, Teen Wolf returned for its sixth and final season at all time lows with a 0.25 rating and 570k total viewers. On Wednesday, American Horror Story pulled a 1.3 rating with 2.5 million total viewers for its season finale (apparently it only had ten episodes planned for this year). Its numbers are up from last year and it is already set to return for its seventh season in Fall 2017. Over on WGN, Salem improved to a 0.10 rating with 290k total viewers for its third Season 3 episode. Even though its numbers are down from last year, I believe it has a decent shot at a fourth season because it has reached the cable third season threshold. On Thursday, USA’s Falling Water improved to a 0.16 rating with 420k total viewers which are its best numbers since its second episode. This one could be making a surge in the latter half of its season, but it started off pretty low so I still do not like its chances too much at the moment. The full ratings results for the week will be available in the upcoming Tuesday Cancellation Watch post and you can see the rundown of last week’s numbers at this link.

Scorecard: There was not much movement in the Scorecard this past week other than some minor shuffling which is pretty much what I would expect at this point in the season. IFC’s Stan Against Evil is not included because I do not have a good benchmark number for that network, but at the moment I consider it likely to get renewed.

The scorecard ranks all of the sci fi & fantasy shows’ ratings performance vs. their network’s ratings benchmark (see definition below). Shows at or above their benchmark should be okay, whereas those slipping notably below are getting into iffy territory.

Broadcast network scorecard based on the ratings through November 10th (metric definitions below):(Links are to the show pages on this site with season to date ratings results and status updates)

Rank (PW): Current rank based on the variance of a show’s season to date ratings average vs. its network’s benchmark (see definition below). The number in parenthesis is the prior week’s rank.

Series: (O) indicates the show is owned/produced by the network and/or a sister studio. (F) indicates the show airs on Friday when ratings expectations are lower. These typically just apply to the broadcast networks where they are more of a factor.

StD Avg: The show’s season to date ratings average based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic.

Net Bench: (Network Benchmark) For the broadcast networks, this is the net’s season to date average rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic for non-sports, non-special, non-repeat broadcasts (for FOX, Empire is also excluded because it counts as an outlier). For the cable channels, this is the lowest level at which a show is typically renewed by that network if there are enough genre entries on that channel to provide a decent sample.

Variance: The variance between a show’s season to date average and the network benchmark as defined above. The higher the variance, the better a show is performing vs. the network mean.

Live+3 Avg Rtg: The show’s season to date ratings average based on delayed viewing up to three days past the live broadcast. This data is not available for all shows. Last year I had the Live+7 delayed viewing, but the availability of that data was very spotty so I am shifting to this metric.

Cancel Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.